Cracking the Coconut Craze

Coconut is having a major moment: hailed as a superfood, weight-loss secret weapon, and healthy kitchen superstar all rolled into one—coconut now sits at the center of many obsessions. And, it's showing up in a bevy of kitchen staples from vegan bacon strips to coconut flours, and cold-pressed oils to coconut creamers.

6 Not-To-Miss Trends Shaping the Future of Food

This week over 80,000 health and wellness leaders will gather in Annaheim, CA for what some call the Fashion Week of food: Natural Products Expo West is where the world’s top food companies, healthy-food innovators, retailers, and even potential investors as come together under one roof to ask “what’s next?”

Here area some of the biggest trends to watch for at this year’s show that are already reshaping how we eat and drink in 2018.

That’s the question driving one of the biggest breakthrough ideas to move into the mainstream in 2017: Biodynamic Farming.

If you haven’t yet brushed up against biodynamics at the grocery store, in your meal-delivery kit or during a recent restaurant outing, expect to soon.

Why? I tackle that question in my latest column with Clean Eating Magazine: Is Biodynamic the New Organic? But it's part of a broader push by good food innovators to rethink what's possible when it comes to agriculture...how can we go a step beyond organics to farm in a way that's resilient, restorative, and helps regenerate not only the quality of our food, but also the planet?

While there’s plenty of buzz right now about plant-based veggie burgers upending the status quo in meat cases in markets across the country (Safeway recently joined the meatless trend), there’s another breakthrough idea that's reshaping the food system in an equally powerful (though quieter) way from the ground up. It’s bee the health of bees.

The conference was held last week in Austin last week. And its vision was bold: to map the best ideas on how we can build and scale a new kind of food system. One that’s better for both people and planet, and massively available and affordable to all.

Before you pooh-pooh this type of thinking as far out or fringe, consider this: these are some of the very same folks who ushered in our current obsession for things like kale chips, chia pudding and quinoa.

Unless you’v been living under a rock, you know how rapidly the food landscape is changing. You know that today eaters are increasingly calling the shots-through their food dollars, social entrepreneurship, social media influence, or even with products they have created for the marketplace.

The mega-trend that’s emerging from all this? I call it the YOU Food Economy.

Far beyond debating fat vs. carbohydrate, practicing Paleo or slashing sugar, the YOU Food Economy is about creating a food plan and eating philosophy that’s uniquely based on the total sum of YOU. Here are 4 ideas transforming the nutrition arena now-and that are worth watching closely.

We all know from experience that optimal energy is the vital juice that helps us feel supercharged to perform our best during athletic adventure, and even just to take on our day. In the business world a sense of abundant, high quality energy can actually be a competitive advantage, as so many of us struggle with feeling flat, foggy and fatigued. (3pm slump, anyone?) Yet while many people commonly confuse "stimulation" (think caffeine or energy drinks) with energy, they could not be more different.

I just got back from the Registered Dietitian Retreat in Napa, where I was honored to host a forum about "How to Eat for Optimal Energy" with my partners at CLIF Bar. We explored 3 essential ideas that help create optimal energy. (With full disclosure, CLIF Bar is a client of mine). The event was hosted for some of the country's top dietitians. And, the setting? The incredibly gorgeous CLIF Family Organic Farm at CLIFs Regis.

Pick up a bag of standard potato chips from any major food company today, and you are likely to see two things. One, an ingredient list that sounds simple and familiar such as“Potatoes, Vegetable Oil, and Salt”. Two, a story of a farmer who grows potatoes.

In the nutrition and food world, the Dietary Guidelines are the equivalent of our “fashion week." Thus, when it was announced earlier this week that the 2015 Dietary Guidelines won’t include sustainability in their diet recommendations for Americans, it set off a ripple of chatter. (For the first time ever, sustainability was proposed in the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) Report earlier this year).